MTA Wants to Keep Second Avenue Subway Momentum Going

Thursday, August 07, 2014 - 03:02 PM

Recommended Links

The first phase of the Second Avenue Subway won’t open until the end of 2016, but the MTA says it’s already planning for the next expansion.

Phase I, which will extend the Q train from 96th Street down to 63rd, is slated to open in December of 2016. But what happens after that has been in doubt. Now MTA chief Tom Prendergast told a New York State Assembly committee the agency is formally adding Phase II to its 2015-2019 capital plan.

He said the project is vital to relieve overcrowding on the Lexington Avenue line, the busiest transit line in the country. "We need to continue Second Avenue, and not put it in a hiatus and just do planning," he said. "We need to continue construction, because once you stop construction it's hard to start it up and it costs you more."

The agency is requesting $1.5 billion to start work on the next section, which is likely — although not definitively so — to take it north to 125th Street. "There's a shell of a station already built at 116th Street," explained Prendergast, referring to work done earlier in a previous iteration of the plan.

But even if the project is fully funded, the earliest shovels could be in the ground is late 2019.

The MTA will formally unveil its draft capital plan at its board meeting next month. Albany will decide whether to approve the MTA's capital budget in January.

Tags:

Kate Hinds is an Associate Producer for WNYC News. She also reports for WNYC and Transportation Nation, a public radio reporting project that combines the work of multiple newsrooms to provide coverage of how we build, rebuild and get around the nation.

Comments [4]

Bronx
from NYC

S-l-o-w.

The perfect representation of the American decline.

This project needs to seriously be fast tracked.

@JOSEPH P. WALL: This subway will get heavy usage. It's not only traveling through one of the most heavily populated sections on the city but it will initially connect the UWS diagonally across Midtown by utilizing the Q. That reduces some of the burden on the Lexington Ave Line.

I agree that a Bronx Expansion is extremely necessary. Not to Co-op though, extend the 6 there. Run the SAS across the Southeast Bronx with a terminal at Throgs Neck or up Third Ave with a Terminal at Mosholo Pkwy. Both of these areas desperately need rapid transit.

I remember being desperate to get on *any* downtown 6 train during AM rush from 77th St. I used to ride uptown to 96th then change to downtown, just to get on at all. That was the 1960s. It's *not* better today. It will not be a train to nowhere I guarantee!

The original, or at least an earlier, subway to nowhere was the 63rd street connector that for years after completion was used to store the occasional train and that's it. Became much more useful when it was connected to Queens Blvd, now carries the F and will soon carry the Q to 2nd avenue. At least this 'subway to nowhere' will carry trains in service and goes through some of the densest residential areas in the country come 2016. The next phase is expect to have tail tracks to the Bronx to allow for a future branch sent there, although if you just want a service to Co-op city why not extend the 6?

Until the elevated subway pillars (or underground sections) are put into place on the Bronx portion of the Second Avenue Subway,this new subway route I think will remain "the subway route to nowhere".Remember, many many years ago when the Second Avenue Subway was first thought of, it was supposed to terminate up in CO-OP City.Now, the way the M.T.A is building this Second Avenue Subway route, it will terminate at 125th Street and Second Avenue with a possible transfer connection to the #4,5,and 6 I.R.T and will cause much overcrowding, chaos, and confusion during rush hours now that the M.T.A is well into the habit of terminating some #6 trains at 138th Street and Third Avenue instead of Parkchester or Pelham Bay Park.

Related

WNYC 93.9 FM and AM 820 are New York's flagship public radio
stations, broadcasting the finest programs from NPR, PRI and American Public Media, as well as a wide range of award-winning local
programming. WNYC is a division of
New York Public Radio.